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By Issam AHMED WASHINGTON, Feb 22, 2024 (AFP) – A Houston-based company is set Thursday to land America’s first spaceship on the Moon in more than 50 years, part of a new fleet of NASA-funded, uncrewed, commercial robots meant to pave the way for astronaut missions this decade. If all goes well, Intuitive Machines will guide its hexagon-shaped lander Odysseus, currently orbiting at approximately 60 miles (92 kilometers) from the surface, to a gentle touchdown […]
By Oliver Hotham with Jing Xuan Teng in Shanghai BEIJING, Feb 22, 2024 (AFP) – A Chinese tech security firm was able to breach foreign governments, infiltrate social media accounts and hack personal computers, a massive data leak analysed by experts this week revealed. The trove of documents from I-Soon, a private company that competed for Chinese government contracts, shows that its hackers compromised more than a dozen governments, according to cybersecurity firms SentinelLabs and […]
By Issam AHMED WASHINGTON, Feb 22, 2024 (AFP) – A spaceship built by a company in Texas is poised for lunar touchdown on Thursday, returning America to the Moon after more than five decades in what promises to be a historic first for the private sector. Here’s a look back at notable attempts — both successful and unsuccessful — at landing on Earth’s cosmic companion. – First survivable landing – The Soviet Union led the […]
PARIS, Feb 21, 2024 (AFP) – Consumer watchdog Foodwatch said it was filing a legal complaint Wednesday against food giant Nestle and another group over them allegedly fraudulently treating water for their top mineral water brands. A government probe reported by media last month said about 30 percent of mineral water sold in France had undergone purification treatment only meant to be used on tap water. Foodwatch said it was lodging its complaint with a […]
Singapore will pay nurses a bonus of up to SGD$100,000 to encourage them to stay in the public health system as the city-state deals with a staff shortage and a rapidly ageing society. About 29,000 nurses will be eligible for the payout, including foreign nurses who have worked in the country for four years, Health Minister Ong Ye Kung said Tuesday. “We want to support our nurses to do a good job,” Ong said. Ong […]
By Lucie AUBOURG The year 2024 promises to be a busy one for American Moon landings, all under a new partnership between NASA and the space industry. A first attempt under the Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) initiative ended in disappointing failure last month, but a second, led by Houston-based Intuitive Machines, will attempt on Thursday to return the United States to Moon for the first time in five decades. NASA’s thinking behind CLPS is […]
By Salam FARAJ BAGHDAD, Feb 21, 2024 (AFP) – Stricken by drought and depleted by upstream dams, Iraq’s once mighty rivers the Tigris and Euphrates are suffocating under pollutants from sewage to medical waste. In a country where half the population lacks access to safe drinking water, according to UN figures, state institutions are to blame for a man-made disaster which is turning rivers into waste dumps. “What is strange about water pollution in Iraq […]
Cambodia hopes to import four tigers from India this year under an agreement signed with New Delhi aimed at reviving the population of big cats in the kingdom, an environmental official said Monday. Cambodia’s dry forests were once home to scores of Indochinese tigers but conservationists say intensive poaching of both tigers and their prey has devastated their numbers. The last sighting of a tiger in the Southeast Asian kingdom was from a camera trap […]
TOKYO, Feb 19, 2024 (AFP) – A Japanese firm said Monday it had successfully launched a spacecraft tasked with inspecting potentially dangerous man-made junk floating around the Earth. The European Space Agency (ESA) estimates that around one million pieces of debris from satellites and rockets larger than a centimetre — big enough to “disable a spacecraft” — are in orbit. The Active Debris Removal by Astroscale-Japan (ADRAS-J) is meant to rendezvous with and examine the […]
By Mathias Cena with Cecilia Sanchez in New York TOKYO, Feb 15, 2024 (AFP) – Wrapped in seaweed and stuffed with delicious fillings, “onigiri” rice balls are shaking off their reputation as a cheap and uninspiring snack in Japan — and enticing hungry converts abroad. Mouth-watering pictures on social media, rising demand for affordable lunches, and a surge in tourism to Japan are all drawing people to the humble onigiri. Just ask any of the […]
By Kyoko HASEGAWA TOKYO, Feb 17, 2024 (AFP) – Japan’s space agency announced the successful launch of its new flagship rocket on Saturday, making it third time lucky for the H3 after years of delays and two previous failed attempts. The H3 rocket, billed as flexible and cost-effective by space agency JAXA, “was put into orbit,” a JAXA official told AFP. Developed jointly by JAXA and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, the H3 is the successor to […]
MOSCOW, Feb 15, 2024 (AFP) – Russia on Thursday launched a supply rocket to the International Space Station, one of the rare Russia-US projects kept alive since Russia’s offensive against Ukraine. A Soyuz-2 rocket carrying the Progress MS-26 cargo ship was launched at the Baikonur space centre in Kazakhstan, Russia’s space agency said on its Telegram channel, showing a video of the lift-off. The rocket was due to arrive at the ISS on Saturday, the […]
